


Heart Worth the Breaking

by iaminarage



Series: Takes the Greatest While [1]
Category: Glee
Genre: F/M, Ryder/Marley friendship, awkwardness ensues, pre-Rynique
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-03
Updated: 2014-01-03
Packaged: 2018-01-07 05:42:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1116197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iaminarage/pseuds/iaminarage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marley decides it's time to tell Ryder that he's not in love with her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heart Worth the Breaking

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks as always to my wonderful beta, loveinisolation. Also thanks to Januarium for the read through and cheerleading!
> 
> The song title comes from Sara Bareilles’s One Sweet Love.

Ryder looked up from his homework to find Marley staring at him. “Did you finish question twelve?” he asked.

Instead of answering, she just kept looking at him as if she were trying to figure him out. Ryder squirmed under the intensity of it for a minute before she finally said, “You know that you aren’t actually in love with me, right?”

This was a bad turn in the conversation. Ryder had just come to do his homework, not face an interrogation. Answering the question couldn’t hurt, though. “I know. I promise. I just … it would be easier if I was.”

Marley’s nose crinkled as she looked at him in confusion. “How would it be easier?”

Ryder sighed. He really shouldn’t have said anything. Now he was stuck. “I guess because you’re the kind of girl I’m supposed to want.”

“But you don’t,” Marley said. She didn’t even look surprised.

“You know?”

Marley rolled her eyes. “That you like Unique? Yeah, I’ve figured that one out.”

Ryder’s eyes widened in surprise. He’d really thought that no one would be able to tell. “How?”

“It’s the way you watch her when she sings lately,” Marley said with a smile. “You look like she’s the only thing you can see.”

“She kind of is.” Ryder could feel himself blushing, so he stared back down at his homework to avoid eye contact.

Marley squeaked in response and Ryder looked back up to see that she was grinning. “So? Are you going to tell her?”

And there it was: the question that Ryder had been hoping to avoid. “I’m just so confused,” he said miserably.

That made Marley stop grinning. “What are you confused about? You like Unique. You know Unique likes you. Seems pretty simple!”

“But it’s not, okay!” Ryder said, crossing his arms. “It’s not simple because Unique isn’t like other girls.”

Marley tilted her head and gave him that considering look again. “Do you want her to be?”

“No! But I don’t understand what it means,” Ryder said.

“What what means?”

“What it means about me!” He wished he had any idea how to explain what he was thinking, because Marley was still looking at him like he was saying something wrong. He was trying so hard not to say anything wrong.

“Oh, Ryder …”

“Like, okay. I’m straight. I like girls. Unique’s a girl. So that’s not confusing. But if we, you know … what if we … she doesn’t …” Ryder couldn’t think of any way to say what he was thinking, so instead he put his head down on the table. “God, this is the worst conversation ever.”

He heard Marley get up and walk around the table. A moment later she had rested her hand on his shoulder. She rubbed his back for a minute before saying, “You know you’re supposed to ask her out on a date, not ask her to have sex.”

Ryder groaned and turned his head so that he could sort of look at her. “I know! Of course. I just meant, you know, some day in the future. We might. If she wanted to.” He hadn’t been thinking immediately, of course, but it seemed like something that might be important in the long term. And when it came to Unique, Ryder always seemed to be thinking in the long term.

“Okay …” Marley said warily.

He wished that he could find a way to make her understand without having to say any of the important words. “So if we did, what would I be then?”

“Oh,” Marley said, and dropped her hand.

Ryder sat up and looked back at her. “Yeah.”

“ _Oh._ ” And there it was.

“You know what I mean?”

“Yeah, I do.” Marley seemed to decide something and then walked back around the table to sit in front of her homework. “Okay, what did you get for question twelve?”

Well, that was a change of topic. He’d actually expected Marley to be more helpful.“Thirty-seven.”

“Me too.”

They both went back to writing and worked through two more problems before Marley looked back up at him. “Ryder, can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Does it matter?” She said.

Ryder was still thinking about math and couldn’t figure out what she was talking about. “What?”

“What it means about you. Does it matter?”

That gave Ryder pause. He’d never really thought about it that way. He’d been so caught up in trying to figure it out, that it hadn’t even occurred to him to wonder if that answer actually meant anything. Now that Marley had asked the question, he wasn’t sure exactly why it had seemed so important. “Why would I be so worried about it if it didn’t matter?”

Marley smiled at him. “Because you don’t want to admit that you’re terrified?”

“It seems like it shouldn’t be terrifying,” he said, wishing that he wasn’t quite so transparent.

“I’m starting to think that falling in love always is.”

Ryder laughed, but he felt his heart clench a little at the words. “Oh, is that what I’m doing?”

Marley locked eyes with him. “If you want to know that, don’t you think there’s someone else you should ask?”

Ryder nodded and looked back at his homework. Marley was right; it was probably time.


End file.
